1. The Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to wireless networking technology. More specifically, the present invention relates to mechanisms for selectively pre-authenticating to anticipated primary wireless access points even before an anticipated wireless access point becomes an actual primary wireless access point.
2. Background and Related Art
Computers now come in a wide variety of forms including desktop computers, laptop computers, tablet PCs, Personal Digital Assistants (PDAs), telephones, and even smaller devices. Such devices may have the ability to communicate over a wireless network. In this specification and claims, a “wireless device” is any device that is capable of communicating over one or more wireless networks even if that device is also capable of communicating over a wired network.
The ability to communicate over a wireless network has become a popular attribute of computers. Accordingly, wireless devices are now spread throughout the globe. The ability to connect to a wireless network is particularly useful for portable computing devices as wireless networks typically allow the portable computing devices to be moved greater distances and with far less restriction that it would if physically connected to a wired network.
One device that greatly increases the utility of wireless devices is a wireless access point. The wireless access point allows wireless devices that are within its range (and that are properly configured and authorized) to access a wired network connected to the wireless access point. The wired network may be a local area network, or even a wide area network such as the Internet. Wireless access points thus tend to be more fixed in space than are the portable wireless devices they support.
Often, when a user moves a wireless device around, the wireless device moves from an area supported by one wireless access point to an area supported by another wireless access point. In order to make the switch from one wireless access point to another, the roaming wireless device often waits until the association with the prior wireless access point is broken before associating with and authenticating to the new wireless access point. Accordingly, there is latency time between the time the wireless device disassociates with the prior wireless network and the time the wireless device successfully authenticates to the new wireless device.
In order to reduce this latency time, it has been proposed that authentication to potential wireless access points be performed even before that potential wireless access point becomes the primary wireless access point. This allows for reduced latency time when it comes time to switch between the prior wireless access point and a new wireless access point that has been pre-authenticated to. This is because after the wireless device disassociates with the prior wireless access point, the wireless device only needs to associate with the new wireless access point, but does not need to authenticate.
Of course, there may be times that a wireless device pre-authenticates with a wireless access point that never actually becomes a primary wireless access point. After all, it is often difficult to predict when a wireless device will begin using a primary wireless access point since the movement of the wireless device is subject to unpredictability in the movement of its associated user. If the anticipated primary wireless access point does not actually become the primary wireless access point, the pre-authentication process represents wasted processor cycles, power and unnecessary load on authentication servers.
Mobile wireless devices sometimes have limited processor and battery resources as compared to their larger counterparts. Accordingly, what would be advantageous are mechanisms that allow for pre-authentication before switching between wireless access points, while having reduced processor and power requirements.